Sinjska Alka exhibition to be staged at UN next week

The Chivalric Alka Society (VAD) of Sinj is organising an exhibition at the United Nations headquarters in New York from March 29 to April 8 to present the Sinjska Alka, a knightly tournament included on UNESCO's world heritage list.

The exhibition, entitled "The Sinjska Alka - 300 Years", is being organised in cooperation with Vladimir Drobnjak, Croatia's Ambassador to the United Nations, the VAD announced on its website.

The opening ceremony will be attended by about a hundred guests from the UN and guests from the New York City administration. An alkar (knight) and his squire, dressed in traditional costumes, will also be present.

The project has been financially supported by the Croatian House Foundation of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the Croatian Tourism Board.

The Sinjska Alka tournament is held annually in August in Sinj, about 30 kilometres inland from the southern coastal city of Split. It commemorates a victory by 700 Croatian defenders against 60,000 Ottoman soldiers under Mehmed Pasha Celic on August 14, 1715. The competition features period-clad horsemen riding at full gallop and aiming their lances at an iron ring, called the alka, which is suspended from a rope above the race track. The tournament was inscribed on UNESCO's world intangible cultural heritage list in 2010.

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